Apple Pie Recipes That Are Better Than Grandma's (2024)

FAQs

Is Granny Smith better than Honeycrisp for pie? ›

Granny Smiths have all the same qualities as Honeycrisps: juicy, crisp and great for baking. The only difference is that Granny Smiths are as tart as a Honeycrisps are sweet. You may need a bit more sugar in the mix when making a filling with Granny Smith apples.

Many pie fillings are made with a processed thickening agent that keeps the filling jelly-like and in place. But McDonald's uses a dehydrated apple powder. The powder not only thickens the filling, but it also adds that extra apple taste that you love.

Granny Smith.

Firm and very tart, this variety is the go-to for many when it comes to pie because it keeps its shape extremely well. But it isn't exactly known for its flavor, so Granny Smiths are best used in conjunction with sweeter and/or more flavorful apples.

After slicing the apple into quarters and removing the core, slice the apples as desired for your pie. You can dice each quarter crosswise for slightly bigger apple chunks, or you can slice the quarters lengthwise for thin apple slices.

While there is an extremely wide variety of apples, all with varying flavors, the sweetest-tasting apple is fuji, followed by gala, honeycrisp, and Red Delicious apples. These apples are great for snacking and eating as is. Granny Smith, McIntosh, and Pink Lady fall on the tart end of the spectrum.

Home of the award-winning Apple Pie Baked in a Paper Bag, The Elegant Farmer is noted by Gourmet Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Food Network and Milwaukee Magazine as having “the best pie in America.” The award-winning Apple Pie Baked in a Paper Bag has been the farmer's signature item for decades, baking over a ...

The clear winner for the United States as a whole was (not surprisingly) apple pie with more than 27% of sales going to the traditional flavor.

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to invent a dish close to what we know as a pie today. They had a honey filling covered in a crusty cake made from oats, wheat, rye or barley. A recipe for chicken pie was also discovered on a tablet carved prior to 2000 BC.

McDonald's Baked Apple Pie recipe features 100% American-grown apples, and a lattice crust baked to perfection and topped with sprinkled sugar. There are 230 calories in McDonald's apple pie. Pair it with a Hot Caramel Sundae for your own twist on Apple Pie A-La-Mode!

And then there's the long forgotten fried apple pie at McDonald's, which made the switch to baked in 1992 due to health reasons and has tasted inferior ever since. Unless you're over 40 and/or live in Hawaii (more on that soon), you've probably never tasted a McDonald's fried apple pie.

Why are Costco apple pies so good? ›

Costco's apple pie is frequently praised for its pleasing crunchy texture and nice balance between sweetness and tanginess when it comes to the filling. In fact, lots of people claim that this pie tastes like it was made from scratch.

My best apple pie would include a combination of these three: Cortland, for flavor; Russet, for texture; and Granny Smith, for its combination of the two.

The short answer? For any standard 9-inch crust, you'll probably need no more or less than 6 to 8 average-sized apples. The long answer is that it really depends on what kinds of apples you're using for your apple pie filling.

Honeycrisp. One of the sweetest apples around, this Midwestern favorite is good for anything—including baking. It boasts a distinctive juicy crispness and is firm enough that it won't cook down much. It complements just about any other apple variety to make a stellar pie.

Granny Smith apples make a beautifully smooth applesauce, but when roasted whole or baked, they don't collapse or disintegrate, making it the preferred apple for tarts, pies, and the platonic ideal of an apple dessert, the famous tarte tatin.

For the best pies, crisps, and other baked treats, apples need to be firm enough to hold their own during the cooking process. We call these apples “baking apples” and to namedrop, they include Braeburn, Cortland, Honey Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Newtown Pippin.